God And Government - Part II
March 2019
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It could be said that if Satan could destroy the Christian message in the United States he could easily topple the Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of America. Our Founding Fathers tried to make the Bible the foundation of the Constitution. Only “religion and private morality” based on the Bible would make the Constitution work.
James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution” and fourth president of the United States said, “We have staked the whole future of America’s civilization…upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” Although the Constitution is not the Bible, it is the foundation of the Republic and, the Ten Commandments are the foundation of our Constitution. The Founding Fathers believed that if citizens did not keep the Ten Commandments our Constitution and Republic would collapse.
Bible And America’s Foundation
Founding Father and educator Noah Webster had this to say: “The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”
The first state constitution was the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639). The framers of this document desired that every aspect of it be based on the Bible. This document was a model for other state constitutions, including the U.S. Constitution, which followed. Another important aspect of our system of government is that it is based on the rule of law. This concept is a direct descendant of Hebrew law and the Ten Commandments. Together, with the concept of unalienable rights from God, these concepts helped ensure a way of life that respected the dignity of every individual. The combination of these biblical concepts is part of the foundation of our government that helps subjugate political power of potential tyrants. Every tyrant has a practice of changing the country's constitution to suit himself to secure and retain power. It is interesting here to note that one of the aspects of the Antichrist’s short reign will be to “think to change times and laws” (Daniel 7:25).
Facts About Our Founders
It has been said that America has never been a Christian nation, with its founders a bunch of atheists, agnostics, and deists. But let’s consider the facts. At least 50 of the 55 framers of the U.S. Constitution were Christians. Every American president has taken his oath on the Bible (except for John Quincy Adams and Theodore Roosevelt) and referencing God in his inaugural address is standard oath. Every one of the 50 state constitutions calls on God for support. The Supreme Court’s Holy Trinity decision in 1892, after an exhaustive 10-year study of the matter, said, “This is a religious people. This is a Christian nation.” Even today, the Supreme Court opens each session with the verbal declaration, “God save the United States of America.”
Principles
Our Founding Fathers incorporated into the founding documents many biblical principles upon which to establish our Republic. The sovereign authority of God, and not the sovereignty of state or man, is witnessed in the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and all 50 state constitutions, oaths, and our Pledge of Allegiance. On our currency it reads, “In God we Trust.”
The principle of moral values with unchanging standards based on absolute truth and the sanctity of life is clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The formation of our government was based on checks and balances. This principle acknowledges that all men are sinners. Godly rulers are desired with warnings against kings and their despotism. The principle of personal accountability and governing self and family as the first level of governance is recognized in the new Republic by its founders. Take time to read the First, Second, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments.
More Principles
One can associate biblical Scriptures to every principle concept in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Amendments. The checks and balances of our judicial, legislative and executive branches is found in Isaiah 33:22: “For the LORD is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.”
The idea of all men being created equal is seen in Acts 10:34: “God is no respecter of persons.”
The right for religious freedom discussed in the First Amendment may have been inspired by I Timothy 2:1-2: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”
The Fifth Amendment secures our rights to private property. Exodus 20:15-17: “Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”
The Declaration of Independence encourages and supplies liberty and free enterprise. John 8:36: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (II Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:1; I Peter 2:16).
The concept of restitution found in our laws look very familiar to those in the Old Testament, Leviticus 6:1-5: "And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.”
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